Good Bye Agathe!

Agathe's going away party was on Tuesday. My heart broke a little bit, but I finally started getting some good stuff going with my camera. I'm slowly figuring out how to use it.

We had drinks at Union Pool, which the outdoor area was PERFECT for the weather . More pics to come!

Midnight Picnic

In case you haven't noticed, I just got a brand new camera. It's a week old today, I don't quite know how to use it but I'm having fun practicing.

Agathe, my favorite Frenchy, and her good friend Caroline, came to my place for dinner after their USA road trip. They have now been to more places in the states than I have (though I can honestly say I have ZERO interest in going to Vegas, ever) and regaled me with stories about their adventures.

We took our delicious food to Prospect Park and had a midnight picnic, since the weather has been so fine. (Can I get next to dat?)
I highly recommend these, bring some wine, and a blanket and sit in the park. It's so lovely and fun. The best accessory for these kind of events though, are amazing French girls, and mine are leaving today (tear!) so I'll have to figure out a way to reinvent the event!

And of course since my camera is just a brand new toy, we played with the long exposure.

Teens with Masks

Nick and I went on over to the Max Protetch gallery to check out his neighbor, and friend's opening Teens with Masks by Oliver Herring.

The gallery was filled with large format photographs with 3-D silver "masks" over the faces of the subjects, teens that he had worked with. The work was perfectly presented. My least favorite thing is when good work is put up on the wall with T-pins or office paper clips. These items are for the office, not the gallery. It shows the artist's lack of care for the work, lack of co-cohesiveness and intent, lack of follow-through.
These pieces were not only well thought out, but beautifully presented in frames that brought the work to the next level.
AND-I'm a hater of frames.

In the back were studies all lined up together.
Basically, they made me want to get out the glitter paint and do something fun.
What was really great about these is he took a relativity messy and unrefined art material and made clean, deliberate lines and shapes, making the medium utterly sophisticated. While at the same time there was a level of fun and humor.



After the inital opening there was dinner, in the gallery which was enjoyable and intimate an incredibly touching gesture from the artist to his friends. I really enjoyed the whole event.

Sunning, Lazing, Sheep's Meadow

This weekend- basically out of nowhere- was the nicest weather in NYC in a hot minute (get it?!). Jordan, my number one lover, invited me to the park to just lay in the sun and do not-a-thing for the whole day. Of course I was diggity down.

High lights included
-meeting all the wonderful people like Will, Courtney, Maria, Maytal and Michael. And seeing Marina again, sober.
-the littlest smallest tiniest puniest dog ever, WITH A MOHAWK.
-watching Capoeria
-an ocean of hot (gay) men with no shirts on
-listening to Mariah Carey's best jams (Honey, Fantasy, Always Be My Baby)
-the Sun!
-Kyle saying "Look at this. I'm going to put this in my mouth." in regards to a massive sandwich.


Oh man, the tiniest doggel ever.


Maytal trying out the Capoeira


the Group of loverlies


Kyle- a good man.

I don't know what I was doing- lets just assume it was squishing your head.

SUPER MODEL!

Free Hugs, a necessity even over a fence.

I wore SO MUCH sunscreen.

Happy Weekend!

Taken at the Hunter Open Studios: MFA.

Earth Day is Everyday!

Earth Day was yesterday. I didn't post because I was overwhelmed with my thoughts about what to write.
There is nothing more important, more non-partisan, more global of an issue than the current crisis we face as a world. Before I'm a Brooklynite, a New Yorker, an American, a Westerner, I am a Global Citizen. I am always puzzled how one abdicate their personal responsibility to their home and their community by poor environmental practices. It is beyond my frame of comprehension how one who is educated about thier actions can still consistantly vote for convince over the environmental choice.
This is not a conservative or liberal view point, this is a moral decision which we all must make, everday. It is critical that we look at every action we take as a choice. Paper or plastic or canvas or nothing? What choice are you making?

As Bill Nye would say- consider this, Meatless Mondays!


No one is asking anyone to go above and beyond what is easy-peasy to do. Its hard to imagine cutting out driving everyday, composting, and installing solar panels. But it is totally easy to imagine not eating meat one day a week. That's only one seventh of your life, that you can dedicate to your home.
Why would you do anything to harm it?

Other ideas include- using a cermaic mug, or travel mug (barista's usually grin, and today me and my peeps got charged for three small coffees, instead of the lattes we actually ordered. See being green, sometimes you get to keep your green!)
-Tupperwear instead of sandwich bags
-Antiquing, then your furniture looks cooler, it has history, its gonna last, and your home is not filled with poorly made, ubiqituous items. Plus there is no thirll like the perfect find and the haggle. Once I got a mirror half off. (which goes with the being green means saving green)

And this one is the biggest and best of them all- REDUCING YOUR CONSUMPTION! YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY MORE THINGS!!! (Think of all the money you could save!)

If you need a new dress, check out your local consingment store. I have the ballerest Bestey Johnson, Halston, Calvin Klien and Helmut Lang dresses from minez.

Now I'll be stepping off my soap box, but remember kiddies, this is probably the most important thing you could be doing for your life, and everyone around you.

You never know...

Brooklyn comes alive in the warm weather. And the wonderful crazies that make this boro interesting come out of hiding.
I am always, shall we say, delighted and charmed (ahem Katie!) by- a mime with crutches, dramatically never quite being able to use them,

A dude on a unicycle juggling orange bowling pins while crossing the street,

or a group of Hasids parading down the street on bikes with yellow flags in the middle of the day. The were bigger than a critical mass can be.

Brooklyn is my home, and this is one of the reasons it has my heart. Everyone is allowed to be who they are. The joy is overwhelming sometimes.
As Marla Thomas (or Cat Stevens) would say:
If you want to be you, be you,
If you want to be me, be me,
Because there's so many ways to be,
You know that there are!

Columbia, Vampire Weekend, Talib Kweli

Lisa- who once went to Columbia (she's a smart cookie) invited a few of us to holler at Vampire Weekend (also Columbia alums) and Talib Kweli (his brother teaches there). It was SO BEAUTIFUL out that we also had a picnic. Really, I couldn't imagine time better spent.

Talib was fantastic live. It was really so much fun to rock out and dizzance to him. He really got the crowd going, at one point he brought some B-Boys and B-Girls on stage and they kicked out the jamz. He also had a moment where he did a verse accopella, and I took some video of it before my camera lost its juice. Sometimes I forget how fast and baller hip hoppers are and then they take thier fatty beats off and just go at it and then I remember- oh yeah. You're amazing.
Check it out at the bottom.

I felt old as the undergrads seemed... young. Like babys.






No Shirt Manz. In a fountain.

Vampire Weekend seemed pretty amped to be playing thier alma matter, and did a special shout out to thier dorm, on the 7th floor, thier first practice ever aparently.
They sound really alot like thier recording, and it was really fun to dance to. Everyone was kinda hippie-ed/hipster-ed out and lovin' it.

After all that time in the sun I turned into a grumpy and headachey zombie, because me and the sun are not bffs. Does that happen to anyone else?